How was the craft revived?

Mountmellick work declined in popularity as the 20th century wore on, and by the 1970s it seemed there were only a few older nuns at the Convent still remembering the stitches.

Many directly attribute the revival of the craft in the 1970s to the interest and enthusiasm of Sister Teresa Margaret McCarthy. Born in Abbeyfeale, County Limerick, Sister Teresa has been in the Presentation Convent in Mountmellick since 1936. She is too modest to say so herself, but all the locals will tell you she is the authority on the embroidery and the spark behind the revival. (Sister Teresa was named a Laois Person of the Year in 2000 for her contributions to local culture and craft.)

'We hadn't a single sample in the house,' Sister Teresa recounts, 'until 1976. Mrs Hayes gave me a scrap, a little doily, and I tried to track down the material then.' Using an old book from the Convent she sorted out the stitches, and on request, soon began teaching them to others. Since then she has taught countless students, many of whom have gone on to become teachers themselves. Sister Teresa thought many classes during the 1990s at An Grianan, the residential college of the Irish Countrywoman's Association, at Termonfechin, County Louth, and gives them much credit for adding Mountmellick Embroidery to their syllabus.

Today examples of Mountmellick Embroidery can be seen in the following places:

• Mountmellick Development Association
• The Nation Museum of Ireland, Kildare St., Dublin 2
• The Craft Shop, O' Moore street, Mountmellick
• The Ulster Folk Museum, Cultra Manor, Hollywood, Co Down
• The Murial Gahan, I.C.A. College, An Grianan, Termonfechin, Co. Louth
• The Historical Library. The Religious Society of Friends, Swanbrook House,Donnybrook, Dublin 4
• The Ulster-American Museum, Omagh, Co, Tyrone

The Victoria and Albert Museum, Brompton Road, South Kensington, London
As interest in the craft was renewed, old pieces of the work began appearing from attics and bureaus, and exhibitions were held during the 1980s in Mountmellick, Dublin and beyond. Although pieces are sometimes worked in colour, it is the traditional white on white embroidery that people were most anxious to examine up close, as photographs rarely do justice to the beautiful and intricate stitches and delicate buttonholing and fringework.

A trunk filled with old original Quaker patterns was donated to the Convent by the Pim family of Mountmellick. This has proved to be an invaluable resource, and many of the patterns found in the trunk were included in the 1985 publication Mountmellick Work: Irish White Embroidery by American Jane Houston-Almqvist.

At classes today the old trunk is brought out and the original patterns copied and taken away.

Sister Teresa especially appreciates the social aspects of doing the embroidery, and hopes that it will remain a 'homely' craft. 'Given as a gift-- yes,' she says, but as to ever reviving its commercial possibilities, "It's cost would make the eyes turn to heaven..."